


Not Long Ago but Far Far Away

by Hexx



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Friendship Adventures, Gen, space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:48:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4258767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexx/pseuds/Hexx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Geekhyena for Christmas in July! I tried to mix multiple bits of your prompt together for a story. I hope you enjoy it and that I did the characters justice for you!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Not Long Ago but Far Far Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Geekhyena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geekhyena/gifts).



> For Geekhyena for Christmas in July! I tried to mix multiple bits of your prompt together for a story. I hope you enjoy it and that I did the characters justice for you!

“It’s the day!” Spot buzzed at her from the floor. Dairine cracked one eye open and stared down at her laptop from beneath her blankets. At least a dozen eyestalks were trained on her with unwavering detail.

“It’s 7am on a Saturday.” She replied, though it was just to tease him. She was the one who had told him to wake her up this early in the first place.

“The day!”

“I heard you the first time.” She said, yawning as she rolled onto her back. She heard Spot scuttle under her bed to the other side where he could scale her blankets that were water falling off the bed and pooling on the floor. Spot thunked down on her stomach and she groaned.

“We must prepare, my sensors tell me the others are preparing even now. We must as well!”

Dairine craned her neck to look at her companion. “I hear you, I hear you alright? I’m up!” She slid him off her lap and onto the bed so she could stand. Cracking her back she went to the closet, pulling her sleeping shirt up and over her head as she did. It hit the edge of the hamper and spilled onto the floor and Spot dove for it, clattering to the floor to pick it up and place it properly n the hamper so as not to slow Dairine down in her dressing.

“Dar?” Nita called from what sounded like the foot of the stairs. “What was that, are you okay?”

Dairine cracked her door open, and called “Just Spot being excitable. It’s fine.”

“Oh.” Nita said, pausing. Then, “Tea is on if you want some before you go, I’ll make you toast.”

“Thanks!” She yelled, closing the door and resuming getting dressed.

She appeared in the kitchen at the same time her father did, and he eyeballed her outfit curiously. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and grinned at him.

“Is that my shirt from high school?” He asked.

“You say that like she’s going to give it back.” Nita said from the table, munching on her cereal and looking at something in her manual. She and Kit had plans to revisit some negotiations in the woods between different tree families this weekend. She gestured vaguely in the direction of the toaster where Dairine’s breakfast was waiting.

“This Star Wars shirt has real vintage, Pop, and I feel it is my duty that it sees the light of day.”

“If you say so.” Harry replied as he poured himself coffee. “I was just wondering because I could have sworn your mother made me get rid of that shirt ages ago.”

“Oh she did.” Dairine assured him. “I just rescued it is all.”

Spot scuttled into the room so fast that he slid a little bit on the tile before bumping into Dairine’s leg. “We have to go!”

“I haven’t finished eating!” She complained, toast in her mouth and tea in hand. Spot bounced a little.

“But he is almost here!”

“Then he is early, and can come have some tea.” Nita said without looking up. “Let her chew Spot, she isn’t much help to you if she chokes.”

Spot thummed with irritation and withdrew most of his eyes before scuttling under one of the kitchen chairs to pout. Dairine sighed at him and swallowed her food before heading towards the back door. There was a popping noise and then a soft knock.

Drawing the door open to see Darryl McAllister in a C3PO and R2D2 shirt so big that the it came down to mid-thigh, Dairine could mentally feel the excitement rolling off of him and Spot respectively. She let Darryl in and offered him juice, which he declined.

“I’m too excited to eat.” He explained, pushing the sleeves that belled out around his elbows up a bit. “So I packed a bunch of food for later when it starts.”

“Do your parents know where you are going?” Harry asked from his seat, looking over his coffee at them while Dairine polished off her toast.

“That I will be here watching movies, and home later this evening.” Darryl said with a smile. A few seconds later another Darryl was in the room, sitting happily between Nita and Harry at the table. “Other me will be happy to help you in the backyard today if you need help.”

Harry eyed the duplicate that was going to be fulfilling Darryl’s word to his parents thoughtfully. “Well there is a bit of weeding to be done, and then we can plant some sapplings.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Dairine said, dropping her dishes into the sink to clean later. It was her chore this weekend so she was sure a pile would be waiting for her Sunday. “I’ll send you an email later Dad, and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Be safe.” Harry said as Spot scuttled over and into Dairine’s backpack.

“We will.” She assured him, kissing him on the cheek before jogging out the door, Darryl close on her heels.

It was probably the shortest trip to the Crossings that Dairine had ever had, but the excitement rolling off of both Spot and Darryl kept growing and growing the more time they spent together so they found themselves at the gate directly with no detours.

“I can’t believe I’m finally going to get to see it.” Darryl said with a dreamy sigh. Dairine bounced on the balls of her feet.

“Not many have yet, so you’re going to be part of a very cool club.” She told him. The gate pinned and they gathered their things to go.  

Dairine had imagined Darryl seeing the Motherboard World would be similar to seeing the moon for the first time. But she had been underestimating things. Darryl was floored, positively speechless in awe of the planet which he treaded gently upon. Soon the mobiles were gathering around them in an excitable welcoming party.

“There are so many!”

“I know, more than the first time I was here.” She mused, eyeballing a few strangers who approached her shyly for her approval. She beckoned them closer and they vibrated with joy.

“Do they all have names?”

“Mhm. They’ll introduce themselves if you want them to. Or I can do it.”

Darryl looked out at the sea of mobiles, all of whom were staring at him with awe and respect that he looked slightly confused about. She shot them a meaningful glance and the staring filtered off into more polite glances.

“Could you do it?”

“Of course!” She cleared her throat and gestured at them. “Okay, so first we have Gigo who was the first one when I woke up, Beanpole, Loop, String, Data, Han, Luke, Picard, Peek and Poke, Random, Tom, Harry, Dick, -“

The whole naming process took a bit of time as it was occasionally broken up by Darryl asking questions or asking for Dairine to stop and wait a minute. She assured him that he didn’t have to try and memorize all the names, and the Gigo informed him rather cheerfully that they can tell him their names at any time if he didn’t remember.  Darryl fiddled with his compact manual and nodded, but insisted that Dairine go on in the naming process.

He laid on the ground, splaying his fingers across the glossy, iridescent silicone that made up the mobile homeworld. The mobiles crowded around him, buzzing and vibrating mechanically as they asked polite questions. Another Darryl appeared farther away, up higher and taking in the whole landscape before it vanished. Dairine frowned slightly.

“Everything alright?” She asked, reaching down to help him back to his feet.

“Yeah, I guess I’m just jet lagged. I’ve never world gated so far from earth before.” He explained.

Dairine felt a twinge of worry as she thought about Darryl’s Abdal status and wondered if it would really be alright for him to be off planet for a whole night. But she looked at him again, pulling mobiles off the ground and letting them cling to his shoulders and shirt so he could carry them towards the mobile city and relaxed.

“This is all so much.” Darryl said in awe as they approached the open air theater that the mobiles were practically herding them towards.

“Is it too much?” She asked, checking the projector that the mobiles had set up for the event.  She glanced at her friend, ready to try and decrease some of the stimulants around him if he needed her to.

“No.” He said after a moment, carefully picking mobiles off of himself and setting them back on the ground. “Not too much.”

Spot scuttled between Dairine’s feet to address her. “I have emailed the Father. He says not to stay up too late. I told him our day lengths do not match up on this planet and he said to tell you to stop letting me…” Spot paused, trying to decipher whatever word Harry had used before finally saying in a slightly put off tone: “Sass him.”

Dairine snorted before setting her backpack down on the ground. “I’ll send him another message in a little bit Spot, you should have just waited for me to do it.”

“I was excited.” Spot explained. Around him other mobiles pipped up and parroted ‘excited’ back to Dairine. She made a ‘shushing’ gesture.

“Alright, alright. I get it, you’re excited. We’ll start the movie marathon then okay? Go get your seats.”

The mobiles scattered momentarily but they quickly settled themselves into places in their preferred areas. Two silicone chairs rose form the ground for Darryl and Dairine to use, the seats deep and curved. Very comfortable looking.

“What order are we showing them in?” Darryl asked as he sat on the planet surface, his back against one of the chairs that had been created. His arms and legs were drawn up inside his large tee-shirt so that he was sitting in it like a little cozy tent. Around him mobiles were huddled, cuddling with one another and leaning on him as they watched Dairine work the projector.

“Well there was this big long debate on the internet that I read, that said to show them in the order they were made and stuff, like we saw because we had seen the original trilogy before the new ones were made. But I think that might distract them because it breaks up the storyline. So another person suggested that we show them in this order.”

She splayed the DVD’s out in front of Darryl so he could see. “1, 4, 5, 2, 3, 6.” He said before looking up at her with a slight frown. “Why?”

Dairine glanced at the mobiles at her feet for a moment and then said telepathically. “Because this way they get to know who Ani was before he became Darth Vader and then after they know who Darth Vader is it goes back and shows them how he became the way he was and then it ends with him being redeemed.”

“Oh.” Darryl said out loud, causing the mobiles to stir. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

“Alright.” Dairine said, popping the disc drive open on the projector and sliding the Phantom Menace into it.

As she settled pretzel style into the chair behind Darryl instead of the one beside it, he leaned his head back against her knee. “Darine.”

“Yeah?”

“We should film their reactions to the twist in The Empire Strikes Back.” The mobiles whirred nervously at the glee in his voice.

Dairine laughed, leaning back in her chair as she imagined the chaos that the little mobiles were going to experience later on. The sky moved above their heads as the music began, the first loud thunderous note making the mobiles jump a bit and tremble. In unison and in awe they began to read the scrolling text aloud.

Spot climbed up into Dairine’s lap and vibrated like he was purring. She placed her hands on top of him and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize if my portrayal of a canonically Autistic character falls short. I try not to fall back on stereotypes but I still tried to make it clear. If I failed, again I apologize and I am always endeavoring to improve.


End file.
